O.C. boy stars in new Disney XD series

Nov. 2, 2012

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 1:17 p.m.

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Eleven-year-old Cole Jensen of Irvine plays the lead role of Wyatt Bernstein in Disney XD's new series "Crash & Bernstein" with Crash, a puppet that comes to life acting as the brother Bernstein never had. STEVEN GEORGES, FOR THE REGISTER

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Eleven-year-old Cole Jensen of Irvine plays the lead role of Wyatt Bernstein in Disney XD's new series "Crash & Bernstein," with his co-star Crash, a puppet that comes to life acting as the brother Bernstein never had. STEVEN GEORGES, FOR THE REGISTER

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Eleven-year-old Cole Jensen of Irvine plays the lead role of Wyatt Bernstein in Disney XD's new series "Crash & Bernstein." STEVEN GEORGES, FOR THE REGISTER

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Eleven-year-old Cole Jensen of Irvine, who plays the lead role, Wyatt Bernstein, in Disney XD's new series "Crash & Bernstein," is flanked by Tim Lagasse, right, the voice and lead puppeteer for Crash, and a puppet that comes to life acting as the brother Bernstein never had. STEVEN GEORGES, FOR THE REGISTER

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Cole Jensen, 11, who plays the lead role of Wyatt Bernstein in Disney XD's new series "Crash & Bernstein," talks with OC Register reporter Peter Larsen between takes at the set where the show is filmed in Los Angeles. STEVEN GEORGES, FOR THE REGISTER

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Tim Lagasse, who is the voice and lead puppeteer for Crash Disney XD's new series "Crash & Bernstein," has a little fun with his co-star, 11-year-old Cole Jensen of Irvine, who plays Wyatt Bernstein. STEVEN GEORGES, FOR THE REGISTER

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Cole Jensen, who plays Wyatt Bernstein in "Crash & Bernstein," spends time in his dressing room between takes studying his lines, practicing with a yo-yo, and sometimes playing video games. STEVEN GEORGES, FOR THE REGISTER

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Cole Jensen shows off some tricks with his favorite yo-yo while in his dressing room between takes of "Crash & Bernstein." STEVEN GEORGES, FOR THE REGISTER

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Eleven-year-old Cole Jensen of Irvine plays the lead role of Wyatt Bernstein in Disney XD's new series "Crash & Bernstein" with Tim Lagasse, the voice and lead puppeteer for Crash, a puppet that comes to life acting as the brother Bernstein never had. STEVEN GEORGES, FOR THE REGISTER

Eleven-year-old Cole Jensen of Irvine plays the lead role of Wyatt Bernstein in Disney XD's new series "Crash & Bernstein" with Crash, a puppet that comes to life acting as the brother Bernstein never had.STEVEN GEORGES, FOR THE REGISTER

â€˜Crash & Bernstein'

When: 8:30 p.m. Mondays

Channel: Disney XD

For more:

Cole Jensen walks off the set of "Crash & Bernstein" after wrapping a scene on the Disney XD series in which his co-star, Crash (Cole plays Bernstein) gets blasted out of the mouth of a cannon along with stacks and stacks of cash.

All the smoke and explosions looked fun, we say, as the 11-year-old from Irvine comes over to introduce himself with a handshake and a smile.

"Yeah," he replies.

Then, the thoughtful look on the boy's face gives way to something closer to a frown.

Blow the smoke away, though, and life is pretty sweet right now for a kid who landed his starring role in part because he seemed like "a real boy." (We should note here that Cole's co-star, Crash, is a puppet – definitely not a real boy – but we'll get back to him in a moment.)

"He won us over," says Mike Larsen, executive producer, who, along with show creator Eric Friedman was one of the main people who picked Cole for the role. "It was a long, long process, and he came in toward the end of it.

"We were going: 'We want a boy. We don't want someone actor-y.' And he was down to earth and naturally funny."

Of course, a sixth-grader doesn't get to Hollywood by himself. Looking on, recently, as Cole worked on set, was Cole's father, Eric Jensen. Even after a few months of production, the elder Jensen still marvels at what his son has done.

"It's just unreal," he says. "He went on about 270 auditions before he had this meeting. I remember thinking (when he got the job), 'What just happened?'

"We looked at each other and thought, 'Our whole life just changed.'"

•••

It took five years or so for Cole Jensen to become an overnight success.

He was with his family at the Irvine Spectrum when a talent scout spotted his older sister, Kate, and asked if she'd ever thought about acting.

"She was doing it for a little while and then I said, 'Hey, I want to try acting, too!'" Cole says. "And my parents said, 'OK, he'll have fun for a little while, it's a good experience.'"

An outgoing kid who loved talking to people and already felt pretty comfortable around adults, Cole had a couple of reasons why he wanted to be an actor way back when he was just 6. His sisters Kate, 14, and Anna, 8, both act too, mostly in commercials so far.

"I love meeting new people," he says. "I was a people person, so I thought it would be cool to meet a lot of new people. And I thought it would be cool to be on TV. I'm always watching these awesome shows and I thought, 'Wow, that would be really cool to be on one of those.'"

And as a cute, all-American-looking kid, he did OK from the start. He says he came close to landing a TV commercial for Mighty Milk on his very first audition. And soon after that he did land his first job, a spot for Microsoft. "We were a bunch of kids in a board room and then we had a food fight," Cole says of that commercial. "It was fun!"

He made his movie debut in 2009 with a small part in Ricky Gervais' "The Invention of Lying." A year later he had a four-episode run on the since-canceled TV series "The Defenders," playing the son of co-star Jim Belushi.

The audition that led to "Crash & Bernstein" came about like any other: While driving home from a different casting in Los Angeles, Cole's agent called and said he needed to head back up the next day. He went in and did well enough to get a callback.

"They said, 'I'd like to see him with the puppet,'" Cole remembers. "I didn't know what I was in for at all. A couple of days later I read with Tim (Lagasse), the puppeteer, and (we) were goofing around and having fun."

Show creator Friedman says Cole had what he was looking for in the role of Wyatt Bernstein, a kid with three sisters whose dream of having a brother to do guy stuff with comes true when his puppet, Crash, magically comes to life and immediately becomes the source off all manner of high jinks and hilarity.

"He gets the jokes," Friedman says. "We had this audition scene that we had seen dozens and dozens of kids do. And you get tired of hearing it. But he made us laugh. He just nailed it."

•••

Cole got the job with six days left in the fifth grade at the Irvine elementary school he attended last year, but couldn't tell anyone because Disney wanted to keep it under wraps. A few weeks into summer vacation, Cole went to work, driving with Eric or his mom, Meloni, to Los Angeles' Occidental Studios, where the show is shot.

"That was pretty cool," Cole says of his first visit to the set that's become his working home three weeks a month.

As for learning to act opposite a puppet?

"It was actually pretty easy. He's so alive you just treat him like a normal person. Tim is hilarious.

He's never low energy," Cole adds. "Even when Crash is low energy, he's still high energy. He's the higher sort of low energy."

True enough. Lagasse, who came to the show from TV puppetry gigs on "Johnny and the Sprites," "Oobi" and "Between The Lions," is turned way up on the energy-o-meter when we run into him in a hallway outside the dressing rooms. We ask what it's like to work with Cole.

"He's not an actor kid," Lagasse says. "He's such a nice boy and he works so hard. And he's probably one of the nicest people I've worked with.

"And we laugh all day, to the point that I get in trouble for making him laugh: 'Tim, we're trying to work here!'"

After working on the show all summer and into the fall, "Crash & Bernstein" premiered on Oct. 8, which started out just another day on set for Cole but ended up with a surprise premiere party in his neighborhood back home.

"We turned the corner and it was like one of those things were one person goes, 'Hey Cole!' and then everyone's heads turn," he says. "There were probably 150 people on our street. I thought it was pretty cool."

Eric Jensen says neighbors and parents of Cole's friends came up with the idea to celebrate the premiere with a block party and a screening of the first episode outdoors on a garage door.

"He was so happy," Jensen says. "And for him, it wasn't about him. He'd been working through, solid, and his buddies hadn't seen him. So just to be able to hang out with his buddies and run around and be stupid, I think that was the greatest part of it for him."

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Cole has only a few minutes before he's due back on the set so he walks quickly down a sidewalk from the soundstage to his dressing room, which is a bit like a neater-than-you'd-expect kid's bedroom. There's a couch and a TV, an Xbox 360 and a scattering of games. There are yo-yos, too, something he got into while on a family vacation in the Midwest. As he explains this, he demonstrates one of his newest tricks.

He likes most everything about working on the show, though he misses getting to see his friends as much as he'd like.

"My friends always say that all of the stunts that everyone does, that (the actors) don't really do it," he says. "So whenever I jump over a couch or something they assume it was just a stunt double. And I tell them, 'Nope, I got to jump over a couch today.'"

His dad says the family's plan is to make sure Cole keeps up with school and that he stays grounded, keeping his average kid values.

"We tell him, 'You can't neglect being a good person because that's what got you here,'" Jensen says.

When his call time arrives, Cole runs down the sidewalk back to the set. As he runs, the setting sun casts long shadows, making Cole look like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. One of the guys on the crew smiles at the sight, saying it's a scene they see a lot – Cole so eager to get back to work that he takes off running.

We asked Cole what's the coolest part of his new life.

"First of all, I get to act with a puppet. How many kids do you know who get to do that? And then I meet a lot of people, which is pretty cool. Guest stars keep coming on, and I get to meet a lot of famous people.

"I get to come home and hang out with my friends and be Cole. I go up to the set and I get to be (Bernstein). It's a ton of fun."

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